Month: May 2007
Meet the Aboriginal People…
…they never taught you about at school: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/time-to-meet-the-aborigines-you-werent-taught-about/2007/05/30/1180205335534.html (paging Marshie ;))
More on Public and Private Schooling
Again, not a balanced consideration of the issues, an opinion piece. In particular the opening anecdote of the disgruntled private school teacher is just that, a single anecdote, not a description of a whole system. But this article does address some of the reasons why my kids attend a good state high school, not a…
‘Offsets’ is a dirty word
At least we’re starting to see some acknowledgement of the reality of climate change on the part of the Australian government – if only because it’s an election year and they’re miles behind in the polls and they realise the electorate is miles ahead of them on this issue. So they’re going to spend $23m…
More on Leaving Iraq
Glenn Greenwald takes up a question we discussed here last week: about the consequences of withdrawing from Iraq: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/28/iraq_risks/
More Google Fruit
‘Bravus’ brand condoms
Strange Fame
I went on a bit of a google this morning to see which libraries around the world might have picked up my Undead Theories book. Heaps bought the earlier book (Weaving Narrative Nets), but probably as much because it was part of a series as on its own merits. In the process I found this…
The News Continues Bad
Southern Ocean not absorbing as much CO2 There are a number of different ‘positive forcings’ that seem to all be occurring sooner and bigger than expected. Far from the natural world finding ways to neutralise human activity, it seems that human activity is unbalancing natural systems in ways that will reinforce the effects of that…
I Find That It Helps To Believe…
…that Someone is guiding my path and planning my days. We’ve put in rental applications for two houses, both quite different but both of which would have been great for us. Both missed out for various reasons (not ones that will impact further applications), but I’m going to see another one today, and if it…
Genocide in Iraq
…seems to be the default assumption if the US – sorry, I mean the Coalition of the Willing, of course – leaves the country1. I doubt it, or at least, doubt that it would occur in a way any more dramatic than the violence that’s already occuring there. The occupation is the irritant and the…
End Public Funding for Private Schools
My mates on the right of politics might disagree with me on this one… but hey, most of them homeschool so they probably aren’t keen to see their taxes go to private schools. But this article from The Age by Catherine Deveny, along with the Shane Moloney speech it links, takes on this issue head…
The Plaint, and the Plight, of the Privileged
A couple of things came together in my mind yesterday as I was sitting at the Ipswich police station, waiting to be fingerprinted1. I was reading the posters on the wall, which were about all sorts of things, but some were about domestic violence. I noticed a couple that called on all men to take…
Big Words 2
I posted a month or so ago on the topic of using big or unfamiliar words. Messing about today I found a poem I wrote around the same time on the same topic: I didn’t use that Word you’ve never Heard before to Put you down Honest It’s just that I Couldn’t think of Any…
The Tide Is Turning
This graphic shows the poll results for the two major Australian political parties over the past few years, since before the last election. The next election is later this year, and it’s certainly looking at this stage (as acknowledged by the current Prime Minister today) as though we might be in for a change of…
Environmental Stewardship and the ‘Good King’
It’s a fairly common theme in fantasy literature, and in history: the good king is the one who, despite having absolute executive authority1 cared for the land and the people, and found ways to increase the prosperity and the living conditions of all his subjects. The bad king2 was a tyrant and had no concern…
Pascal’s Reverse Wager
Pascal’s Wager, as described in his Pensees, is as follows: “God either exists or He doesn’t. Based on the testimony, both general revelation (nature) and special revelation (Scriptures/Bible), it is safe to assume that God does in fact exist. It is abundantly fair to conceive, that there is at least 50% chance that the Christian…
Complexity – A Metal Sampler
There were a variety of comments on this week’s earlier post about metal and the ‘bright child’, so I thought I’d play with it a little more. For a start, the Telegraph (with the linked article) clearly didn’t know much about metal, since they included AC/DC (hard rock) and a photo of Brian May from…
On Smoke and Mirrors (and looking after your richest mates)
Kenneth Davidson consistently writes thoughtful, excellent, well-informed commentary on the Australian economy. Here’s his take on the Federal Budget and the Education Endowment Fund I wrote about last week: http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/smoke-and-mirrors-hide-funding-facts/2007/05/16/1178995233015.html How shocking and surprising (not!) that the much-vaunted Howard government achievement of ‘paying off government debt’ has the net effect of lowering middle class wages,…
800
Some time in the past couple of weeks this blog quietly and without notice passed the 800 post mark
Bill Bailey is a brilliant, hilarious, multi-talented freak
He speaks several languages, plays several musical instruments expertly, is a fantastic standup comedian and actor and sprinkles his standup routine with jokes about Neitsche, Chaucer and general surrealism. Some people just get way too much out of the talent pool. Here are a couple of excerpts from YouTube, but check out the 10 part…
‘A Comfort for the Bright Child’
This article from Britain’s ‘Telegraph’ newspaper reports a study of the correlation between being smart and listening to heavy metal: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/21/nmetal21.xml Intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented, according to research. The results of a study of more than 1,000 of the brightest five per…